Abu Hanifa Dinawari

Life

Of Persian or Kurdish stock, Dinawari was born in the (now ruined) town of Dinawar in modern-day western Iran. It had some importance due to its geographical location, serving as the entrance to the region of Jibal as well as a crossroad between the culture of Iran and that of the inhabitants on the other side of the Zagros Mountains. The birth date of Dinawari is uncertain; it is likely that he was born during the first or second decade of the 9th century. He was instructed in the two main traditions of the Abbasid-era grammarians of al-Baṣrah and of al-Kūfah. His principal teachers were Ibn al-Sikkīt and his own father. He studied grammar, philology, geometry, arithmetic, and astronomy and was known to be a reliable traditionalist. His most renowned contribution is the Book of Plants, for which he is considered the founder of Arabic botany.

Dinawari's Kitāb al-akhbār al-ṭiwāl (General History), written from a Persian point of view, is possibly the earliest apparent effort to combine Iranian and Islamic history. While historians such as al-Tabari and Bal'ami devoted the introduction of their work to long discourses on the duration of the world, Dinawari attempted to establish the importance of Iranshahr ("land of Iran") as the centre of the world. In his work, Dinawari notably devoted much less space to the Islamic prophet Muhammad compared to that of Iran. Regardless, Dinawari was a devoted Muslim, as indicated by his commentary on the Qur'an. He concluded the history with the suppression of Babak Khorramdin's rebellion in 837, and the subsequent execution of the Iranian general Khaydhar ibn Kawus al-Afshin.

Besides having access to early Arabic sources, Dinawari also made use of Persian sources, including pre-Islamic epic romances. Fully acquainted with the Persian language, Dinawari occasionally inserted phrases from the language into his work.

Dinawari's spiritual successor was Hamza al-Isfahani (died after 961).